Anyway, I know it has nothing to do with Halloween, but when I think about 80s singers, I think of Paul Young. He wasn't in the spotlight all that long, but I always thought his was the most gorgeous voice of the era. And it was even more haunting (in which case, I guess it can be shoehorned in to the Halloween theme) if you ever heard him in concert, as I was lucky enough to do way back in 1985. I'm pretty sure he performed this one at the time--one of my favorites. Try to ignore the annoying back up singers and concentrate on Paul's awesome voice:

From the sublime to the ridiculous (the definition of bathos, no?), here's Bobby "Boris" Pickett's novelty hit from the mid-60s.

The "Boris" in his name refers to iconic horror star Boris Karloff, whose voice Pickett was simulating in this song. The real Karloff--the original Frankenstein monster of film--was actually quite funny on those rare occasions he did comedy--as seen here in Arsenic and Old Lace. (The film's star, Cary Grant, mugs in a particularly forced and desperate way throughout the picture, but Karloff's performance is a masterpiece of subtle underplaying, and therefore far more amusing than Grant's.)And now, the piece de resistance--or rather the piece there's no point in resisting. It's my updated, Canadianized version of the Pickett number:They were watching the results on election nightWhen their eyes beheld a horrifying sight.For young Trudeau they said was poised to win,But how to react, and where to begin?They did the gibeThey did the Justin gibeThe Justin gibeIt's not hard to describeThey did the gibeWeren't his "progressive" tribeThey did the gibeThey did the Justin gibeThe Justin gibeFrom the very first they oooh'd and ahhh'd his looksHe was not like leaders from those history books.He looked more like a Bieber or a Timberlake.Like a Canadian Idol, for goodness sake.Said he couldn't move to the Prime Minister's house.He thought the place was haunted, and so did his spouse.There was tons of asbestos floatin' in the airAnd there was just no way they'd think of living there.He did the gibe.He did the Justin gibe.The Justin gibe.He dissed the Harper tribe.He did the gibe.His standards were prescribed.He did the gibe.He did the Justin jibe.The Justin gibe.So if you see him trick or treating on the streetAnd you can't decide to take the trick or the treat.Consider this: the treat's the one to pick'Cuz we already fell for his election trick.Then do the gibe.Then do the Trudeau gibe.The Trudeau gibeHe sparkled and he bribed.We'll do the gibeAnd never end the feudThe Trudeau gibe:With Justin, we're all screwed...

I'd say that satisfies at least some of the criteria of dhimmitude--showing deference and reaffirming that all Muslims are blameless while it's infidels who pose a greater threat to Muslims than Muslims do to them. In so doing, the chief wasn't "Magnifying Our Connections"--the video's clunky, tone-deaf way of phrasing it. He was magnifying the non-problem of angry, vengeful infidels as a way of sucking up to Muslims, some of whom are very dangerous indeed, and one of whom had just offed a Canadian soldier standing guard at Canada's War Memorial.

Our new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, wants to bring 25,000 Syrian "refugees" to Canada a.s.a.p., and he wants the military to play a key role in the delivery, even if it unduly strains our resources.I say hold your horses, there, Justin. Because of Vlad Putin, hundreds of thousands of Syrians are returning home.You know how it's going to play out, don't you? We'll bring all those Syrians here, endow them with citizenship (and in Justin's Trudeaupia, there'll be no more fuss about keeping your niqab on to swear the citizenship oath), and they'll go back to Syria once things calm down. And when tensions flare up again, these citizens of convenience will insist we get 'em outta there--fast, as Lebanese-Canadians did when Hezbo went to war with Israel.

Dude in the U.K. who has no job, 11 kids (and counting) and has been collecting welfare benefits for decades says there's nothing he can do to keep the missus from popping out the bambinos.Time to either get a vasectomy or a reality TV show, pal.

Palestinian kleptocrat-in-chief Mahmoud Abbas took excessive umbrage when Israel's Netanyahu brought up the ties between the Grand Mufti (whom PLO founder Yasser Arafat considered to be his "uncle" and inspiration) and Hitler's Holocaust. Abbas has no problem, however, embracing the sort of Judenhass that kick-started the Shoah, and ensuring that Palestinian moppets are marinated in it at an early age. Hence, this:

The Palestinian organization that heads the Palestinian Authority promoted a German, Nazi-era children’s book on Twitter, nrg reported on Thursday.

The tweet of the book’s cover and antisemitic message emanated from what is purportedly Fatah’s official Twitter account.

The book, titled Do Not Trust A Fox in The Meadow Nor the Oath of Any Jew, was first released in 1936. It was one of three antisemitic children’s books published by Der Stürmer, a weekly Nazi tabloid.

The paper, published by prominent Nazi Party official Julius Streicher, was a significant part of the Third Reich’s propaganda machine, and often ran obscenely antisemitic caricatures of Jews, blood libels and articles demanding the annihilation and extermination of the “Jewish race.”

The book contains antisemitic cartoons, depicting the racial differences between Jews and “normal” Germans, and presenting Jews as dishonest business owners who cheat non-Jews. It ends by saying, “The Jews are our misfortune.”

“Breast cancer awareness,” critics charge, has become a sort of feel-good catchall, associated with screening and early detection, and the ubiquitous pink a marketing opportunity for companies of all types. For all the awareness, they note, breast cancer incidence has been nearly flat and there still is no cure for women whose cancer has spread beyond the breast to other organs, like the liver or bones.

“What do we have to show for the billions spent on pink ribbon products?” asked Karuna Jaggar, the executive director of Breast Cancer Action, an activist group whose slogan is “Think before you pink.”

She concluded: “A lot of us are done with awareness. We want action.”

Some broader women’s health groups agree. “The pinkification of the month of October, from football cleats to coffee cups, isn’t helping women,” said Cindy Pearson, the executive director of the National Women’s Health Network, an advocacy organization.

The reality of it is that "pink" is mostly a marketing opportunity and not a way to cure cancer.

Trudeau studied environmental geography at McGill University and engineering at the Université de Montréal—but failed to complete degrees in either discipline. Among his other triumphs, which apparently earned the confidence of the electorate, Trudeau was a snow board instructor, a camp counselor, a white water rafting instructor, and a substitute drama teacher. Even a farcical billet like community organizing would have been more impressive.

Next, the old one:

Notwithstanding the smear campaign, Harper was on the whole a decent leader with sound moral instincts and, with a master’s degree in economics—a degree he actually completed—a leader with fiscal savvy. Let us review some of his legislative accomplishments. As blogger Jeremy Swanson points out (personal communication), the Conservative government got us through one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. The government reduced the GST by two percentage points, a 30% reduction on a universal value-added tax. It introduced pension splitting for retirees, a boon for both husband and wife. It instituted tax free savings accounts, which benefits anyone willing to save. It negotiated a number of international trade deals which will stand us in good stead in years to come. And Harper stood four square in favor of Israel, a country threatened with extinction by the vast Islamic surround, and the only democracy in the Middle East. He has much to be proud of.

Call me a Debbie Downer, but I doubt we will be able to say the same of Justin--that he "has much to be proud of"--once he's been ejected from office (as I'm sure he will be in due course).Update: Whither Canada? (Shouldn't it be "Wither Canada?)

Sure, you could dress up your moppet as, say, a wind turbine or an energy vampire (two of the Department of Energy's creative suggestions). By why do that when your kid could wear this nifty Ernest Moniz, Ph.D costume?I know, I know, he sort of looks like an aged Caitlin Jenner--in a pageboy, and in male drag. But he really is rather famous in his own right, at least inside the Beltway.If you're still at a loss re his identity, all is explained here:

Show everyone how big a fan you are of our nuclear physics-loving, Iran Deal-explaining, classically coiffed Secretary of Energy by dressing up as Ernest Moniz, Ph.D., this Halloween. The hair is key here -- but don’t forget your copy of the Quadrennial Energy Review, the nation’s roadmap to a smarter, more secure and more competitive energy future.

Ingredients:

"The hair is key here"--indeed. As it is when dressing up as Donald Trump or Albert Einstein. But since old Ernie loves nuclear-physics and can explain the Iran nuke deal, why would any kid not want to be him?Assuming, of course, that you can get your hands on a copy of the Quadrennial Energy Review in time.

Seems there's just no cheering up angry, seething Muslims fleeing a religious war in Syria, so the clowns have left the building, er, the "refugee" camp. (H/t:MW)And since we're on the subject...Clowns Without Borders? Seriously?You know you're living in a cockamamie world when there's such a thing as that.The biggest problem in our world, of course: angry, seething Muslims without borders ('cuz the world is just one big unhappy, borderless ummah).

The paraphrase of Orwell's memorable line in Animal Farm occurred to me when reading this:

A federal jury in Peoria, Ill., has awarded $240,000 to two Somalian-American Muslims who were fired from their jobs as truck drivers at Star Transport, an over-the-road trucking company, when they refused to transport alcohol because it violated their religious beliefs, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which brought the case. The trial started on Oct. 19, and the jury returned its verdict the next day after 45 minutes of deliberation.

Judge James E. Shadid, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, found in favor of EEOC after Star Transport admitted liability in March 2015. The resulting trial was to determine compensatory and punitive damages and back pay. The jury awarded Mahad Abass Mohamed and Abdkiarim Hassan Bulshale $20,000 each in compensatory damages and $100,000 each in punitive damages. Judge Shadid awarded each approximately $1,500 in back pay….

"EEOC is proud to support the rights of workers to equal treatment in the workplace without having to sacrifice their religious beliefs or practices," said EEOC General Counsel David Lopez. "This is fundamental to the American principles of religious freedom and tolerance."

To paraphrase another famous line, this one Patrick Henry's: Give me liberty to practice sharia on my own terms, or pay me off big time with the tribute money (jizya) I'm owed, dhimmi. Okay, maybe it lacks the succinctness, the impassioned zing of the original, but I think it captures the essence of the situation.

GENEVA — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for comments suggesting that a World War II-era Palestinian religious leader persuaded the Nazis to carry out a policy that exterminated 6 million Jews.

Speaking to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Abbas deplored Netanyahu's comments a week earlier referring to Nazi sympathizer Haj Amin al-Husseini, a former grand mufti of Jerusalem. The remarks aimed to illustrate Netanyahu's belief that Palestinian incitement at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site goes back decades, but set off an uproar instead.

Abbas on Wednesday called the allegations "false, untrue and baseless" and said they manipulate the sentiments of Jews about "the most horrendous crime known in modern history committed by the Nazis.":

Actually, they manipulate the sentiments of Arabs, who have been screaming for years that A) European Jews who managed to survive the Holocaust are non-indigenous to the region and therefore do not belong in Israel, and, B) Arabs/Palestinians should not be "punished" for the Holocaust, which had nothing to do with them.The truth, of course, is a bit more nuanced than that. Here's an excellent summary of the facts, ones which both Mahmoud Abbas and his fans in the New York Times would, for the sake of their narrative (and as far as they are concerned, it's the only acceptable one) would prefer to ignore:

The Führer’s Mufti: After World War I, the Great Powers of Europe jockeyed for influence in the Middle East’s oil fields and trade routes, with France and Britain holding mandates throughout most of the region. In the 1930s, the fascist regimes that arose in Italy and Germany sought greater stakes in the area, and began courting Arab leaders to revolt against their British and French custodians. Among their many willing accomplices was Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, who fled Palestine after agitating against the British during the Arab Revolt of 1936-39. He found refuge in Iraq – another of Her Majesty’s mandates – where he again topped the British most wanted list after helping pull the strings behind the Iraqi coup of 1941. The revolt in Baghdad was orchestrated by Hitler as part of a strategy to squeeze the region between the pincers of Rommel’s troops in North Africa, German forces in the Caucuses and pro-Nazi forces in Iraq. However, in June 1941 British troops put down the rebellion and the Mufti escaped via Tehran to Italy and eventually to Berlin.

Once in Berlin, the Mufti received an enthusiastic reception by the "Islamische Zentralinstitut" and the whole Islamic community of Germany, which welcomed him as the "Führer of the Arabic world." In an introductory speech, he called the Jews the "most fierce enemies of the Muslims" and an "ever corruptive element" in the world. Husseini soon became an honored guest of the Nazi leadership and met on several occasions with Hitler. He personally lobbied the Führer against the plan to let Jews leave Hungary, fearing they would immigrate to Palestine. He also strongly intervened when Adolf Eichman tried to cut a deal with the British government to exchange German POWs for 5000 Jewish children who also could have fled to Palestine. The Mufti’s protests with the SS were successful, as the children were sent to death camps in Poland instead. One German officer noted in his journals that the Mufti would liked to have seen the Jews "preferably all killed." On a visit to Auschwitz, he reportedly admonished the guards running the gas chambers to work more diligently. Throughout the war, he appeared regularly on German radio broadcasts to the Middle East, preaching his pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic message to the Arab masses back home.

To show gratitude towards his hosts, in 1943 the Mufti travelled several times to Bosnia, where on orders of the SS he recruited the notorious "Hanjar troopers," a special Bosnian Waffen SS company which slaugh-tered 90% of Bosnia’s Jews and burned countless Serbian churches and villages. These Bosnian Muslim recruits rapidly found favor with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who established a special Mullah Military school in Dresden.

The only condition the Mufti set for his help was that after Hitler won the war, the entire Jewish population in Palestine should be liquidated. After the war, Husseini fled to Switzerland and from there escaped via France to Cairo, were he was warmly received. The Mufti used funds received earlier from the Hilter regime to finance the Nazi-inspired Arab Liberation Army that terrorized Jews in Palestine.

The Arab Embrace of Nazism: Husseini represents the prevalent pro-Nazi posture among the Arab/Muslim world before, during and even after the Holocaust. The Nazi-Arab connection existed even when Adolf Hitler first seized power in Germany in 1933. News of the Nazi takeover was welcomed by the Arab masses with great enthusiasm, as the first congratulatory telegrams Hitler received upon being appointed Chancellor came from the German Consul in Jerusalem, followed by those from several Arab capitals. Soon afterwards, parties that imitated the National Socialists were founded in many Arab lands, like the "Hisb-el-qaumi-el-suri" (PPS) or Social Nationalist Party in Syria. Its leader, Anton Sa’ada, styled himself the Führer of the Syrian nation, and Hitler became known as "Abu Ali" (In Egypt his name was "Muhammed Haidar"). The banner of the PPS displayed the swastika on a black-white background. Later, a Lebanese branch of the PPS – which still receives its orders from Damascus – was involved in the assassination of Lebanese President Pierre Gemayel.

The most influential party that emulated the Nazis was "Young Egypt," which was founded in October 1933. They had storm troopers, torch processions, and literal translations of Nazi slogans – like "One folk, One party, One leader." Nazi anti-Semitism was replicated, with calls to boycott Jewish businesses and physical attacks on Jews. Britain had a bitter experience with this pro-German mood in Egypt, when the official Egyptian government failed to declare war on the Wehrmacht as German troops were about to conquer Alexandria.

After the war, a member of Young Egypt named Gamal Abdul Nasser was among the officers who led the July 1952 revolution in Egypt. Their first act – following in Hitler’s footsteps – was to outlaw all other parties. Nasser’s Egypt became a safe haven for Nazi war criminals, among them the SS General in charge of the murder of Ukrainian Jewry; he became Nasser’s bodyguard and close comrade. Alois Brunner, another senior Nazi war criminal, found shelter in Damascus, where he served for many years as senior adviser to the Syrian general staff and still resides today.

Sami al-Joundi, one of the founders of the ruling Syrian Ba’ath Party, recalls: "We were racists. We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi literature and books... We were the first who thought of a translation of Mein Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to the Arab inclination toward Nazism."

These leanings never completely ceased. Hitler’s Mein Kampf currently ranks sixth on the best-seller list among Palestinian Arabs. Luis Al-Haj, translator of the Arabic edition, writes glowingly in the preface about how Hitler’s "ideology" and his "theories of nationalism, dictatorship and race… are advancing especially within our Arabic States."When Palestinian police first greeted Arafat in the self-rule areas, they offered the infamous Nazi salute - the right arm raised straight and upward.

The PLO and notably Arafat himself do not make a secret of their source of inspiration. The Grand Mufti el-Husseini is venerated as a hero by the PLO. It should be noted, that the PLO’s top figure in east Jerusalem today, Faisal Husseini, is the grandson to the Führer’s Mufti. Arafat also considers the Grand Mufti a respected educator and leader, and in 1985 declared it an honor to follow in his footsteps. Little wonder. In 1951, a close relative of the Mufti named Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el-Husseini matriculated to the University of Cairo. The student decided to conceal his true identity and enlisted as "Yasser Arafat."

In light of all this, methinks Abbas, Yasser's successor, doth protest a tad too much. On the other hand, he pretty much has to, otherwise his version of events--his narrative--would quickly turn to dust, and blow away. In that sense at least, Netanyahu's supposedly impolitic flub can be seen to be the exact opposite of that--in fact, as a canny move, indeed.

Dyer was there to launch his new book--Don't Panic: ISIS, Terror and Today's Middle East--in front of a crowd of fans. As Tarek Fatah describes it, Hassan bravely stood her ground, not only against Dyer's fatuous assertions, but against the hissing mob; unaccustomed to hearing the truth, especially from a Muslim woman who refuses to play the victim game, the crowd ultimately fell silent:

It seemed Dyer was surprised to face a critique of his work at the hands of a Muslim woman instead of the usual “we are victims of Islamophobia” rhetoric.

Notwithstanding the fact that most Islamists in the West are second generation and born here, Dyer suggested the next generation of Muslims in the West will reinterpret Islam and the doctrine of jihad to suit the West.

While not losing her smile, Hassan appeared livid.

“We do not have to reinterpret the doctrine of armed jihad as you would like us Muslims to do,” Hassan said. “We have to repudiate this doctrine.”

For a moment, the nearly 500 people sat in stunned silence.

Then a handful clapped in a feeble display of solidarity with the brave Muslim woman on the stage.

First of all, props to Hassan, for having the courage to speak truth to P.C. power. And shame on the foolish, clueless lefties who prefer Dyer's vapid platitudes to the reality that's as plain as day, should they only bother to open their eyes and see it.Update: Dyer's priorities--don't sweat the small stuff (like armed jihad/ISIS-style savagery and rapacity/the rise of the latest caliphate) since the threat of global climate change supersedes all other world problems. (In other words, he lives up to the name Grim Dire when the subject is warming but turns into Mr. Sanguine when discussing the jihad.)

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The defeat of Stephen Harper’s government is a triumph for the people of Canada — the triumph of democracy over autocratic rule. After 10 years of that rule, the great majority of Canadians can now rejoice an autocrat will be replaced by a man of the people as leader of our country — a new leader whose first name means “just, upright and righteous.”John Sbragia, Bowen Island, B.C.

Oh, brother. Dude's obviously intoxicated.

Update: Someone else who's "rejoicing" over Harper's defeat--Amira Elghawaby, who works for the entity formerly known as CAIR-CAN. A few days after Trudeau's victory, Ms. E. told Globe and Mail readers that Muslims are breathing a sigh of relief now that Islam-friendly Justin's in power:

The previous frame had been imposed on [Canadian Muslims], without their consent and despite their protests. Throughout the election, Canadian Muslims watched as they were vilified as “other,” practitioners of “barbaric cultural practices,” and making choices alien from “Canadian values.”

This othering led to a documented spike in anti-Muslim incidents, including verbal and physical attacks on visibly Muslim women in both hijab and niqab, along with increased Islamophobic online postings and comments.

Yet this deliberate framing throughout the election period was nothing new. Canadian Muslim communities have endured years of it. Whether it was making sweeping generalizations about an entire faith – claiming that “Islamicism” was the greatest threat facing Canada – or suggesting that Canadian mosques could be harbouring radical extremists – a decade of Stephen Harper changed perceptions about Canadian Muslims in deeper and perhaps more hurtful ways than even the aftermath of 9/11.

Back then, Prime Minister Jean Chretien made it a point to visit Ottawa’s main mosque soon after those horrific attacks, memorably doffing his shoes and joining the congregants in a public show of solidarity.

Little of that was on show during the Harper years. After the deadly attack at Parliament Hill by a deranged individual pledging allegiance to violent extremist ideology a year ago, the Prime Minister went nowhere near a mosque.

He didn't? What's wrong with the man? Didn't he realize, a la shoe-doffer Jean, that Islam's a religion of peace, and that its doctrines are entirely benign? Why, you wouldn't, for instance, see Harper go out of his way to spring an Islamic charity worker from a Pakistan jail, as Chretien did when he went to bat for Omar Khadr's dad. And so what if he turned out to be on a first name basis with Osama bin Laden? The crucial thing, as Amira underscores, is not to harp on all that negative "jihad" stuff, as Harper always seemed to do:

Many Canadian Muslims grew accustomed to the negativity. Every terrorist plot or act, in Canada or abroad, was attributed to “jihadi terrorism,” even though Canadian intelligence services advised against using such terms as they “succeed only in conflating terrorism with mainstream Islam, thereby casting all Muslims as terrorists or potential terrorists,” as noted by the authors of a 2010 RCMP report titled Words Make Worlds. Even government advisors tried (but failed) to do away with such terminology.

Yes, because in Amira's world, sticks and stones and "such terminology" will break your bones, but "jihad" will never hurt you.Something tells me our new prime minister (a compulsive mosque-visitor; in fact, a real mosqueteer) won't have any trouble getting on board with that one.Update: The difference between Harper and Chretien/Trudeau: unlike the two Liberals, Harper declined to play the dhimmi. That's what bothers Amira most of all.

Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said, “We are grateful for the positions Mr. Trudeau and his party have taken on a number of issues, including: support for hate crimes legislation; sanctions against Iran; a range of social justice challenges; and a close Canada-Israel relationship—to name only a few.”

Support for hate crimes legislation? Oh, you mean the desire to resurrect that odious Section 13, the one that Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant helped kill off with lots of garlic and a wooden stake to the heart?And those Iran sanctions--they're pretty much a thing of the past now that Justin, like Barack, has given thumbs up to the heinous and irrevocable nuke deal.As for "social justice challenges"--that's just CIJA pandering to the newly-elected Liberals, since "social justice" was the bailiwick of the now-defunct Canadian Jewish Congress's (and one of the reasons why it was defuncted).Yup, there's a distinct scent of weed--even if it's only of the metaphorical variety--emanating from CJIA HQ.

Heather Mallick, the Toronto Star fixture who suffers from perhaps the worst case of Harper Derangement Syndrome in the country, has emerged from her decade-long funk now that the "dark days" of Tory rule, as she calls them, are finally over. Here's a sample of the now-jubilant Heather's writing post-Trudeau win. And even considering that for some unknown reason she's caring for a newborn baby, and that sleep deprivation may therefore be a factor, these lines reveal her, ahem, unique thought processes in all their deliciously--deliriously--unhinged wackiness:

I tire. After 10 years of fighting Harperism, my skull is sieve-like and my brain leaking, chunk by chunk, into something like those drip pan arrangements underneath the fridge. Doctor, prescribe me a census, marijuana legalization, an assisted-dying law by the Supreme Court’s February deadline, wise and abstemious Senate appointees, fence-mending at the G20, help for the planet at the Paris climate conference ... it’s a long list.

On Election Day morning, I tried to calm a fussy newborn baby with happy songs. I tried jingles like the WKRP bait shop ad, “Red wigglers, the Cadillac of worms” and the theme song to the Beverly Hillbillies. It didn’t go well. And then I quietly sang O Canada to the baby, naturally replacing “sons’ command” with “daughters’.”

The baby relaxed in my arms and listened quietly, intrigued. “Our home and native land,” “glowing hearts,” “glorious and free,” I sang breathily.

And then the day ended very very well.

There's no point in waiting for Ms. Mallick to regain some semblance of sanity: clearly, at this stage of the game, she is much too far gone. However, I think it might be an act of kindness to say a prayer or two for the poor bambino currently in her care, an innocent being forced to endure the onslaught of Heather's archaic, not to mention downright bizarre, pop cult references. ("Red wrigglers?"--wow, that really is cutting edge baby entertainment, Heather. As I always say, who needs Abby Cadabby of Sesame Street singing "Hurray-Hurray for Broccoli" when you can lull the babe to sleep with a fake ad from WRKP in Cincinnati? Although, speaking as a mom who was a whiz as singing sleep-inducing lullabies back in the day, I were you, I think I'd go with a different 1970s ear worm--The Captain and Tenille's "Muskrat Love." It always had the designed soporific effect on my son, even though looking back at it now, falling asleep a.s.a.p. could just been his way of drowning out my really awful singing.)I wonder--does singing "Red Wrigglers" and "The Beverly Hillbillies Theme Song" to a baby constitute a form of child abuse, (or, at the very least, a kind of cruel and unusual punishment?).

Sid Ryan was awarded the Canadian Arab Federation's Social Justice Award at their 40th anniversary dinner held in Toronto on June 16, 2007. Ryan was recognised for his work as an International Peace Observer in Northern Ireland and his championing of Palestinian rights, specifically, his strong support for CUPE Ontario's Resolution 50 which calls for union members to support the international campaign of boycott, diverstment and sanctions against Israel.

Such a wonderful chap! Salt of the earth! Exceptionally tikkun olam-y! And what a way with words (especially when lambasting Israel--that's Sid at 19:55 of this pro-Gaza video--for having the chutzpah to defend itself against the eliminationists)!But what Sid is doing in the Toronto Sun (surely he'd be more at home in, say, the Toronto Star or rabble.ca or on the Ceeb) is anyone's guess.BTW, you know what BDS really stands for, don't you? It's Bullsh*t, Damnation and Slander.

It is a revolution inspired by the words of George Orwell, who knew a thing or two about how the powerful and their minions lied repeatedly and often in the same short, memorable sound bites ("Hope and Change"/"Real Change Now," anyone?) in order to bamboozle and lord it over the rabble. Here's Orwell's prescient, pre-Obama/John Kerry/Justin Trudeau/Hillary Clinton/squishstream media line:

In a time of universal deceit - the truth is a revolutionary act.

And, if you consider how proponents of sharia and leftist ideology think of free speech (i.e. as something that is beyond the pale because it is blasphemous/offensive), in our time telling the truth has often become a criminal act.

In a bold New York Times Op-Ed published last weekend, Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder argues that climate change could lead to a resurgence of Hilter-esque geopolitical thinking.

“The Holocaust may seem a distant horror whose lessons have already been learned,” he writes. “But sadly, the anxieties of our own era could once again give rise to scapegoats and imagined enemies, while contemporary environmental stresses could encourage new variations on Hitler’s ideas, especially in countries anxious about feeding their growing populations or maintaining a rising standard of living.”

Snyder, author of the new book “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning,” draws parallels in the Op-Ed between the World War II and more-contemporary battles for resources.

Adolf Hitler invaded the Soviet Union to seize Ukraine’s fertile soil — as well as to kill the Jews living there — Synder (sic) writes. The Nazi dictator was motivated, he explains, by his obsession with securing Europe’s resources for the German people.

More recently, the Rwandan genocide in 1994 “followed a decline in agricultural production for several years before,” notes Synder (sic). And in Sudan, he writes, drought helped start the Darfur genocide by forcing Arabs to migrate to land inhabited by non-Arab ethnic groups.

Hitler wasn't driven by what we think of as "climate change." He wanted to change the climate of the planet in a positive way by ridding it of the plague of Jewry. His was a really awful, crackpot idea that, dead Jew-wise, ended up being astonishingly successful. Today, there is another Shoah in the offing, and it, too, involves people in the grip of a terrible, crackpot idea--the Shias' belief that they must rid the world of Jewry in general and Israel in particular in order to coax their messiah, the inordinately shy twelfth imam, from his cozy hiding place so he can return to preside over Shia global supremacy. And they plan to pull it off via a nuke or two dropped on Tel Aviv.Now, that would change the climate (as would, say, ISIS enjoying continued success with its global caliphate project, yet another product of bad, megalomaniacal thinking). But since that Holocaust has nothing to do with the professor's ecologically-driven thesis, it isn't part of his Algorithm--or on his Algorian GPS. (I know that for a fact because when I scanned the book's index online, I found it went from "International Women's Day" to "Iraq War," with nothing on Iran.)

Saturday, October 24, 2015

You see a pair of big green eyesAnd suddenly you're sighing sighs.He sings a little tune, You swoon, And fall for his crap.That tune, that swoon, they're part of the Trudeau trap.He says he's for "the middle class,"Conservatives are awf'ly crass.You're putty in his hands; his plansMake you want to clap.Those plans, those hands, they're part of the Trudeau trap.Some months from nowWhen you gained some more perspectiveYou may wise up and you'll see your votingWas defective.Then all at once you have regrets,Start smoking Justin cigarettes.You take another tokeThe joke's So droll you go, "Snap!"You thank your stars that you're so high.The only way to take this guy.You hate your fate--You're stuck in the Trudeau trap.

"Whassup with all the knifings in Israel?," ask the sob sisters of squish-wing media? Commentary's Jonathan Tobin takes a stab (sorry) at explaining it. As he sees it, it's about the Arabs' inability to countenance the presence of "filthy" Jews on land claimed in perpetuity for Allah, a longstanding hatred that infuses and animates their music (call it Zionhass hip hop). A run down of some Palestinian hits of interest include:

...“Stab, stab,” or “Run Over, Run Over the Settler,” [which] ought to give even Americans who tend to idealize attacks on Israelis as a legitimate form of protest pause.

The [New York Times] article correctly points out that popular music is integral to spreading the message that killing random Jews with knives or by any other means is a laudable activity. Some of the artists tell the Times that their goal is only to get Palestinians to stand up for their rights. But it’s hard to see how pulling a knife and stabbing ordinary Israelis will do that. That’s especially true when you recall, as Times articles never do, that the Palestinian leadership has rejected several Israeli offers of statehood and independence that would have given them control over almost all of the West Bank, a share of Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Indeed, the focus on the mosques on the Temple Mount, a standard theme of Palestinian leaders dating back, as I noted earlier today, to Hitler’s Palestinian ally, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, is a reminder that the real issue for the Palestinians isn’t borders or settlements but the Jewish presence anywhere in the land. In their eyes, the “settler” that the song wants to run over can be a resident of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as much as a Jew living in a West Bank settlement.

Nor is there any divide within Palestinian society between those urging peaceful protest and those cheering murder. As the Times points out, a Palestinian, who won the “Arab Idol” television song contest and was appointed a United Nations goodwill ambassador, released a new song this past week that specifically references stabbing incidents in Jerusalem and Afula. The common denominator that runs between these more sophisticated offerings and more crude efforts is the shedding of Jewish blood and willingness to glorify anyone who kills Jews as a hero whether it is a youngster with a knife or Hamas fighters launching rockets at Israeli cities.

The response to this lamentable situation from Israel’s critics is to blame the victims and to urge Israel to redouble its efforts to make peace and thus ally [sic] the anger that is driving this culture of hate...

Jews should be familiar with this sort of anger/hate. It's the same type of hate that sparked all the massacres, all the pogroms. And, pace Michael Coren and other sob sisters who were so affronted by Netanyahu's Mufti line, it's what gave rise to the Holocaust. You can't make "peace" with that sort of hatred. You can either defeat it--or be defeated by it. Period. End of story.

Friday, October 23, 2015

For anybody who understands the Holocaust, the Shoah, the Final Solution; for anybody who understand the Arab and Muslim world of the 1920s and 30s; for anybody who genuinely cares about a safe and secure Israel, this is vehemently absurd, dangerous and pernicious. Indeed the leader of the opposition in the Knesset, Isaac Herzog, demanded that, “Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimizes the Holocaust, Nazism and Hitler’s part in our people’s terrible disaster.”

Coren's conclusion (which follows many, many paragraphs later):

The Holocaust is not a Muslim issue. It breaks my heart to say it, but while Christ the Jew and Christ the Son of God was shamed, the mass murder of six million Jews was a product of Christian Europe, not Islam or the Middle East. Prime Minister Netanyahu, I know you are angry, but you have a lot of apologizing to do. Now please, before it’s too late.

Here's the letter I wrote in response:

No one disputes that Hitler was the prime mover of the Holocaust. However, I think Michael Coren is a bit too quick to absolve Islam entirely of the sort of hysterical, obsessive Jew-hatred that fueled the German megalomaniac. One need look no further than David Nirenberg's recent book Anti-Judaism, a brilliant analysis of the roots of anti-Judaic thought in the West as well as in Islam. Regarding the latter, Nirenberg notes that the Quran, Islam's holy book, "is extensively structured as a polemic against the Jews." Meanwhile, Islam's founder, the man whom Muslims are told is "perfect" and whom they are commanded to emulate, is said to have transformed Jews into "apes and pigs," and ordered the beheading of every adult male of the Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe.

So while, as Coren writes, "The Holocaust is not a Muslim issue," in some crucial ways, Hitler's thinking re Jewry and portions of Islamic thinking could be said to be in synch. Then, too, there's the fact that Hitler was a huge fan of the more martial aspects of Islam. As he told his favourite underling, Albert Speer: ‘It’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why did it have to be Christianity, with its meekness and flabbiness?” Hitler far preferred Islam, which he called a Männerreligion—a “religion of men.” And he admired the rewards which Islam promised its jihadi martyrs—a paradise of "houris" and free-flowing wine. That sort of thing, argued Hitler, was much more suited to the temperament of the German warrior than was the “Jewish filth and priestly twaddle” of Christianity.

Finally, one would be remiss in this context--as I believe Coren is being--if one failed to mention that Hitler's Holocaust is serving as the inspiration for the Holocaust, Part 2, or Holocaust, The Sequel, the one that Iran's supreme leader (who, ironically, is a hardcore Holocaust-denier) is hoping to unleash on Israel, the Jewish State.

In the pantheon of Nazi collaborators, Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini is right up there with Pavelic in Croatia, Petain in France, Horthy in Hungary, and all the other quislings—their name comes from the collaborationist leader in Norway, Vidkun Quisling—who implemented Hitler’s will. It was, ironically, the British authorities who appointed him to his position in 1921. During the 1929 massacre in Hebron, as during the openly anti-Semitic 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, al-Husseini proved himself a confirmed Jew-hater and the natural ally of Hitler in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

It wasn’t until November 1941 that the Mufti met Hitler in person. Significantly, in the view of many historians, that encounter in Berlin took place two months before the Wannsee conference, where leading Nazis led by Hitler’s security chief, Reinhard Heydrich, plotted the implementation of the “Final Solution”—the extermination of the Jews.

In the official German record of their discussions (not an exact transcript, but a summary of what was said), it was clear that both Hitler and the Mufti were already in agreement that the Holocaust had to be visited upon the Jews. For his part, the Mufti expressed his appreciation of Germany’s commitment to the “elimination of the Jewish national home,” while Hitler restated his “active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests.”

For good measure, the Fuhrer added that “Germany was also aware that the assertion that the Jews were carrying out the functions of economic pioneers in Palestine was a lie. The work there was done only by the Arabs, not by the Jews”—a slander that could easily be expressed in the exact same words by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that targets the “Jewish national home” in our own time.

That last point highlights a critical factor which the furore around Netanyahu’s speech—much of it generated by visceral opponents of Israel who only talk about the Holocaust when it justifies their backing of Palestinian violence against Jews now—has largely missed.

Please Visit

Followers

About Me

Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.